Even outwardly fashionable people make missteps now and then—particularly when young. In college, like a lot of people, I tried on a new persona practically every two weeks. The hippie (even though I didn’t like the Grateful Dead), the raver (even though I’d never been to a real rave)—you get the idea. Eventually I settled on wearing only black for a few years. Not because I was a goth or particularly depressed but because it was easy and distinctive.

Right before that phase, or at the beginning of it, I was dressing for a rush event at my sorority. You didn’t have to dress up, but some people did make an effort. I decided to go with what I thought was a bohemian yet elegant ensemble, a long black fringed skirt that I liked because it was black (duh) yet kind of bohemian. I can’t remember what top I put on with it, but around my hair I wore a wide black cotton headband that hit just above my forehead. I felt confident that I cut a striking figure, so noticeably different from the other girls in their sorority letter sweatshirts.

I was leading some rushees around the house when one of my “sisters” looked at me and snorted. “You look like Rhoda,” she said.

Needless to say, Rhoda Morgenstern, while a lovely and amusing fictional character, was not one of my style icons. I laughed it off, but I was stung. Later I figured out that pulling hair off the forehead was a bad idea for someone with a square face and that my body type was a bit too curvy to look good in hippie wear. I think I still experimented a little, but got better at figuring out what suited me and what didn’t, and I never made quite as big of a fashion faux pas again. I’m just glad it all happened before the advent of digital cameras and Facebook.